His talents included formidable sight-reading and memorising skills, and he played much unfamiliar repertoire by, for example, Alkan, Liszt and Scriabin. He made his London début at the Proms in 1958 with the Busonipiano concerto. He won first prizes at the 1961 Budapest Liszt Competition and the 1962 Tchaikovsky Competition.

His own music, more than two hundred works, includes operas, large-scale music for orchestra, cantatas, songs, chamber music, two piano concertos and much music for solo piano. He also transcribed and arranged other composers' music for piano, and wrote extensively about music.

Sadly, good health always seemed to elude him, and he died in London, aged only 52, on 1 August 1989.